A Different Path
by JenH
Summary: Darren was prevented from hearing Steve and Mr Crepsley talking. Twenty years later his life is drastically different from what we read in the books. Spoilers for book 11 and 12.


**_Disclaimer:_**_ The characters do not belong to me. There **are** spoilers in this. Beware! You probably won't realize though, if you haven't read the last two books._

"It doesn't really matter anyway," I whispered to the tarantula. A slight, mocking smile tugged across the corners of my mouth but never fully appeared.

I'd always been fascinated by spiders. As a kid I used to collect them. I'd spend hours rooting through the dusty, old shed at the bottom of my garden, hunting the cobwebs for lurking eight-legged predators. When I found one, I'd bring it inside and let it loose in my bedroom.

It used to drive my mom mad!

When I was nine, my mom and dad gave me a small tarantula for my birthday. It wasn't poisonous or very big, but it was the greatest gift I'd ever received. I played with that spider almost ever waking hour of the day. Gave it all sorts of treats: flies and cockroaches and tiny worms. Spoilt it rotten.

Then, one day, I did something stupid. I'd been watching a cartoon in which one of the characters was sucked up by a vacuum cleaner. No harm came to him. He squeezed out of the bag, dusty and dirty and mad as hell. It was very funny.

So funny I tried it myself. With the tarantula.

Needless to say, things didn't happen quite like they did in the cartoon. The spider was ripped to pieces. I cried a lot, but it was too late for tears. My pet was dead, it was my fault, and there was nothing I could do about it.

My parents nearly hollered the roof down when they found out what I'd done- the tarantula had cost quite a bit of money. They said I was an irresponsible fool, and from that day on they never again let me have a pet, not even an ordinary garden spider.

I bought myself the tarantula yesterday. It wasn't every day I turned thirty. Sighing I picked up my mail and sorted through it; bills and junk mail. I chuckled self-deprecatingly. They were the closest things I had to presents. "And talking to a spider won't change anything."

I probably would've been impressed with the spider if I had never gone to _Cirque du Freak _and saw Madam Octa. She was green and purple and red, with long, hairy legs and a big fat body. She could do amazing tricks and was the ultimate pet. I had desperately wanted her.

Grimacing, I checked the time. I turned away from the spider and went outside. It was a regular rainy, windy day. I sprinted to my car and quickly got out of the rain. The road was packed with cars. I'd be late again. It wasn't like it mattered too much. I'd just read a few sentences less in a manuscript.

Although I didn't like my job it paid the bills. As a failed author it only seemed fitting to be the one of decided to fail wanna-be-authors. Looking back on it now, I wonder where I'd lost my spirit, my ambition. Where had I left my hope of working with exotic spiders or being an author? Scanning my memory, I think it began the night I went to _Cirque du Freak_. It was the strangest night of my life.

_Darren spotted the door. The one they'd stopped by on their way in, the one leading up to the balcony. He paused when he reached it and checked behind one last tine. Nobody there._

_"Ok," Darren said to himself. "I'm staying! I don't know what Steve's up to, but he's my best friend. If he gets into trouble, I want to be there to help him out."_

_Before he could change his mind, Darren opened the door, slipped through, shut it quickly behind him and stood in the dark, his heart beating as fast as a mouse._

_He stood there for ages, listening while the last of the audience filed out. He could hear their murmurs as they discussed the show. He headed towards the balcony._

I couldn't really remember much of what happened next. After all the years of looking back and trying to figure it out I wasn't sure what had actually happened. It was hard to tell fact from fiction anymore.

Pausing at a traffic light I shut my eyes and concentrate, trying hard to remember what really happened that night. I remembered wishing desperately I had reached the balcony and found out what Steve was up to. I concentrated harder now, as the memories became slow and fuzzy. I remembered one of those people in the blue-hooded robes grabbing me. There was something else too…something about a monster.

I shivered involuntarily as the light changed to green. The car moved along at a snail's pace. My thoughts turned to my old friends.

Tommy was a famous footballer. He was always a good goalie. He traveled around a lot. We had only lost touch a few years ago. Alan was a geneticist, a famous one too, big into cloning. He was very wrapped up in his work.

It shouldn't have come as shock but I knew them as ordinary, unremarkable children. Now Alan and Tommy were famous.

I had no idea what Steve was up to. As a child he wanted to be a mercenary soldier. For all anyone knew he could've been.

On Monday at school Darren and Steve told Tommy and Alan almost everything. Darren and Steve were pretty good actors. No one would've ever guessed Steve had stayed for some weird reason and that Darren had got attacked when trying to spy on Steve. It was that day their friendship gradually began to split.

I smiled darkly. Now eighteen years later I was stuck in job I hated, completely alone. I can't help but think of what might have happened if I managed to make it to the balcony. I would undoubtedly be leading a more interest life than the one I had now. Switching on the radio I tried to remember the face beneath the blue hood.

_The mouth had no teeth or tongue…large lopsided green eyes…grey face stitched together._

_It trusted its head __forward, leered and spread its arms._

_Darren screamed, lurched to his feet and stumbled for the exit. His frantic thoughts recalled Steve worrying if the thing was human. Steve had been right._

_The thing pounded after him making a lot of noise. He flew out of the theatre when he got to the door, rolled down the steps, then picked himself up and ran for his life. _

In any case after _Cirque du Freak_ my life changed. My strong sense of curiosity and slightly disobedient streak were replaced by weariness and fear. I remembered being afraid to leave my house in case I saw the thing. It appeared frequently in my nightmares. Even when the experience faded away it still dictated my actions.

I sighed and fidgeted with the glove compartment. Inside was a large, bulky brown envelope. My eyes darted around the car, as if searching for the person who had deposited the envelope even though they must've been long gone by now.

With trembling hands I opened it. I pulled out an achingly familiar notebook. In disbelief I thumbed through it, forgetting that I was sitting in traffic till a horn pulled me out of the diary.

Automatically I began driving again thinking of the words on the pages. It began exactly the way I remembered writing it but the story had continued long past the point were I had stopped writing and told of adventures I _never_ actually had.

Though I didn't have any experience to prove otherwise, something in me screamed that this life wasn't my own. Something was missing. Something big. I had missed something along the way that was now causing my unhappiness. This, sitting here in a traffic jam on the way to a job I despised was _not_ what Destiny had had in store for me at one time.

The bizarre tale confirmed these facts. I swallowed hard and was surprised to find that I was fighting back tears. Why had the other Darren chosen to remove himself from the equation? Didn't the other him realize my life would only be filled with emptiness and misery. The fanatic story could've been my life but it wasn't.

I raised the diary in mock salute to the other Darren. This wasn't the life the other Darren had wanted for me. "You failed."

My life, his life; neither was anywhere near perfect.

I laughed caustically. "Must be a destiny thing."


End file.
